"I Saw A Ghost (Lean)" is the reason why kids start bands. As low-fi and scratchy as early Strokes and as innocent and yelpy as most freshman albums, Good Bad Not Evil portrays what it feels like to pick up a guitar and strum for the first time. Equal parts noise and composition make up this song, creating a fun garage-rock sound that makes you want to break out the old axe and start playing.
On Wincing The Night Away, The Shins don't convert anyone. The songs are actually fairly bland compared with their past work. But if one song shines above all the rest, it is the first song, "Sleeping Lessons." The lyrics might as well be "we don't have much to offer past this track... so enjoy!" The Shins opened their most recent tour with "Sleeping Lessons", and for good reason. The song takes two minutes to build, and then explodes off the speakers with a dynamic scale progression and the optimistic singing of James Mercer, bringing the crowd back to the days of Oh, Inverted World and Chutes Too Narrow.
Talk about irony. Look up "innocuous" in the dictionary and you'll find it means "not offensive or rowdy," as in "the innocuous comment put out the fiery debate." James Murphy always has a dry wit about him, and he knows very well that crowds at LCD Soundsystem shows are anything but "innocuous." Luckily for us, the song is also not "innocuous". The kickin' drums and scratchy bass of the song creates a great idea that Murphy expands for seven golden minutes. The tune forces you to get up and dance rowdily, even if you want to remain inactive, inoffensive, and innocuous.
"You are the girl that I've been dreaming of / ever since I was a little girl": The opening line that starts a song about possible homosexuality, probable jealousy, and of course, inevitable dancing. Although the Black Kids only have the Wizard of Ahhhs EP released, their reverb-based dance sound seems readily able to span an album. While the lyrics of this song are fun and simple, I have to say that I'm a sucker for counting on beats, as the whole band does in the chorus. "One! I'm biting my tongue. / Two! He's kissing on you. / Three! Oh why can't you see? / One, two, three, four!"
Jens Lekman is always pleasantly melancholy. He knows he is a crooner, and "The Opposite of Hallelujah" is no exception to this rule. Lekman also knows how to tell a story. In Hallelujah, he is trying to tell his sister about the troubles in his life, but chokes on his words, never telling him how much she means to him, and how he wants to be a role model for her. Like Stephen Merritt or Win Butler, Lekman often places depressing lyrics within a happy melody to create one heartache of a song.
So technically this song will be released on the 2008 Destroyer album Trouble In Dreams. But my undying love for Dan Bejar and his music, and my need to share it with the world, is evidenced by the inclusion of "Foam Hands" to the list of 2007. While not as spacious as Rubies' "Painter In Your Pocket," "Foam Hands" is instead filled with a constant church-like organ and a chorus of people singing the song's chorus. Also uncharacteristic of a Destroyer track, the song ends in whistling. Perhaps taking a page from A.C. Newman, we will have to wait until later this year to see if the rest of the album is just as new in form. And perhaps, if this song has staying power, I'll include it on "Geoff's Top 25 Tracks of 2008" as well.
Alright. So I know that this song is the marketing ploy of Apple to sell the next generation of iPod nanos. I know that Feist is all over VH1 as the "New Artist You Oughta Know" (even though Feist already hit us with "Let It Die" nearly four years ago). I know that every time I walk into Best Buy, Leslie Feist's voice is ringing on large stereos over the sound of "we are selling flat screen HD televisions! See the electronics section!" But look away from the ads, and listen to the track, and you'll think "damn, this song is catchy. It's fun. It's easy to play and listen to. And the music video is so stylish, it might as well be an ad for American Apparel." Speaking of which, who do I contact to get Feist to endorse this website?
Wolves have made an interestingly large appearance in indie music today. We see Wolfmother, Wolf Parade, "Wolf Like Me" by TV on the Radio, Wolf Eyes, Sea Wolf, and "Raised by Wolves" by Voxtrot, just to name a few. But none of the above are as hardcore and in-your-face as Les Savy Fav's "What Would Wolves Do?" With the intense drums, screechy vocals, and ridiculously bloody live shows, Les Savy Fav brings immediacy and head-banging to the wolf pack. The song even includes a wolf howl of "ahh-ooo!" creating a fast-tempo song you can really sink your canines into.
This was the first song I heard this year on my local college radio that made me go out and buy the record. Part man, part machine, Battles have constructed a 7 minute song that trucks onward with inhuman consistency. Each part of the song has it's own beat and melody, and rarely does the song stay too long on one subject. This is what makes the "math rock" genre that Battles have created work: never being boring, and always creating new sounds.
You won't find a song more fun to dance to on this list. Even when Los Campesinos! questions their own talents with "I can't dance a single step," they push on into a chorus armed with danceable drums and lyrics. The childishness and innocence of this track reminds me of a polished The Go! Team song. They both use unique instruments like the xylophone to give power to their songs. They both seem to enjoy using unnecessary exclamation points to accentuate their names. And they both are out to party and have fun.
Everyone loves an underdog. Britt Daniel takes bits and pieces of the entire Spoon discography and compiles brass instruments, riffs on simple chord progressions, and just the right amount of sonic experimentation. The result is the upbeat winner on Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. "The Underdog" is a song that both Spoon-fanatics like myself and newcomers to Spoon can enjoy, introducing a new audience to the best parts of Spoon all in one wonderful pop song.
A couple years ago I became intensely obsessed with the song "Gold Digger" off West's much-lauded album Late Registration. This year, a similar trend occurred with West's "Good Life," a exciting track that combines the two best parts of Kanye West: his huge egocentricity and boisterous sense of humor. In addition to this, the song boasts an awesome music video, complete with the logical style, flair, and color that makes "Good Life" so easily able to obsess over.
Animal Collective has had a productive year. From touring basically nonstop, their first network television appearance, and two albums that became quick critic darlings, Animal Collective seemed to be everywhere. While I believe Panda Bear's side project Person Pitch outshines his groups album Strawberry Jam, that's not to say that Jam didn't have its share of jams. Fireworks is the most mature-sounding song on the record, bringing more than 6 minutes of endless sound and bizarre lyrics. Expect Animal Collective to take a rest in 2008 - probably putting out one masterpiece instead of two.
The music video sucks. Band of Horses sold out "The Funeral" to Microsoft's Sync. The lyrics are repetitive. So what? Maybe the lyric-writer in Band of Horses went on strike with the rest of the WGA. All I know is that, in 2007, I could not stop listening to "Is There a Ghost." The glorious reverb of singer Ben Bridwell, the epic sweep of the guitar in the chorus, and the never-ending supply of cymbal crashes each contribute to a truly "spirit-ual" song (you can blame the writer's strike on that one, too).
Okay, Spencer Krug. We get it. You have a lot of ideas. You need to get them out, so you concoct more albums in one year than most do in five. But if you cook too long, you're gonna burn something, right? Fortunately for us consumers, most of those ideas Krug has been brewing are musical gold. As is true with "The Taming of the Hands," a song filled with as many lyrical "WTFs?" as electronic hooks. And in what reminds me of Wolf Parade's "I'll Believe Anything," it has that sense of epic proportions that sends the song into a taste level that is beyond anything Krug or anyone else has prepared in quite a while.
Challengers was a let-down. Even though The New Pornographers is one of my favorite bands, even I had to admit the inadequacies of their latest effort. Yet, on certain tracks, like the Dan Bejar-penned road trip epic "Myriad Harbour," you can recollect what makes The Pornos so great. The power-pop vocals and guitars, coupled with Bejar's trademark sardonic lyrics and sloppy drums, creates a trip that is worth taking. When Bejar sings "someone somewhere asked me / Is there anything in particular I can help you with?" you await the choral answer, "all I ever wanted help with was you," a wonderful line that propels the song into the final, explosive chorus.
This song is a 5 minute loop of beauty rarely found in today's techno music genre. Modern techno is often about a boring quarter-note bass and vocals that are more robotic than human. The songs are often filled with more cymbal crashes and melodic runs than any listener really knows what to do with. But instead of overwhelming, Swedish artist Axel Willner uses minimalism to his advantage: the result, a song that is as easy to dance to as it is to relax to.
On Funeral, Win Butler barely scratched the surface of his abilities as a lyricist. "Intervention" is a lyrical masterwork, with as much power emotionally as any song written this year. When Arcade Fire managed to crash Saturday Night Live as musical guests, they opened with "Intervention" and illustrated why they are one of the best live bands touring today. Every instrument on the stage can be heard, and every emotion in the lyrics can be felt. At the conclusion of the song, Butler ripped the strap off his acoustic and slammed it into the ground, as if unable to take the sadness flowing through his veins and devastating words flowing from his mouth - a grande gesture I find very appropriate to this fantastic song.
6.
Bros - Panda Bear
In PE 101, we learned about the 4 stages of sexual pleasure. They are as follows: 1) Stimulation - see the first 5 minutes of "Bros." A loving and embracing section dedicated to starting the mood off right. 2) Plateau - see minutes 5 to 9 of "Bros." A section involving more direct contact with your eardrums, i.e., loud rhythmic beats and excited guitar strums. 3) Orgasm - See minute 9 of "Bros." The climax, often involving a burst of pleasure and happiness, sometimes characterized by vocal noises like "ah! oh!". 4) Rest - see minutes 9-12 of "Bros." A section where the pleasure calms down, and time seems to stand still. At this point, some choose to rest, while others choose to start the cycle over by playing this love-filled song again.
Need I say more?
It seems like every time I show this song to someone who hasn't heard of The National, their first response is "...wow, who is this band?" I think you know you've made a good song if the general response is sincere interest and approval. "Fake Empire" creates a dark tone through Matt Berninger's deep voice, and the match of piano and drums. During the first post-chorus, it feels like the piano is running to keep up with the sound of the bass drum, as if running through the streets of New York, as giant skyscrapers look down, causing the piano to play even louder to match the enormity of it all.
Will Sheff's band has never felt more tight and focused than they do on the opening track of "The Stage Names." The song is about how life is not as good as the life we see in the movies, how our lives have no climax, no big moments like a "parade that's for him only." And for a song that's about how drawl we all are, it sure does pack an invigorating punch. The staccato of chord after chord and constant sound of a film projector in the background gives the song a sound that is, appropriately, often reserved for a movie theatre.
It took a couple of listens to this last song on Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga to have the track's impact fully sink in. Maybe it's just the line "I believe that someone'd take care of me tonight" that sets this song free. Or maybe it's the simplistic nature of the chords that Spoon has mastered so well. Or maybe it's that at the climax of the song, at the very best and most sonically pleasing moment of the album, the music stops. It leaves you wanting more, yet also leaves you completely satisfied. I believe that defines "staying power" for me, and "Black Like Me" embodies that term perfectly.
I told myself I wasn't going to make this the number one song of 2007. I said it out loud and in my head over and over again. I told my co-blogger Lyra that I wouldn't do it. I counted the reasons it shouldn't be the best song of the year. Let me name for you a few:
1) It takes too long of a time to get going.
2) Franz Ferdinand covered the song, and it sounds just as good on Alex Kapranos as it does on James Murphy.
3) Pitchfork named it best song of the year, and it's so boring to copy Pitchfork.
4) It's depressing, simple, and repetitive.
5) I've listened to "Get Innocuous!" two more times than I have "All My Friends" according to my usually accurate iTunes.
6) It takes too long of a time to finally end.
But despite all this, here I sit. Having written 23 1/2 blurbs (the 1/2 is for the brevity of "Elephant Gun") about an incredible year of music. And "All My Friends" sits with me, alone at the number one spot on my list. The main problem with this song is... it's unavoidably good. It pains me to say that it has basically everything a good song should have. It has a sense of nostalgia, it's catchy, it's certainly headphone ready, and... the worst part... it is fucking danceable. Everything about this song shines. I tried and tried... but it's too late. How did I let this happen?
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